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Archive for the ‘Cutting Edge’ Category

The current Eurozone crisis is only the spearhead of a wider crisis of globalisation. The neo-liberal economic model which has swept the world over the past thirty years has reached, or is reaching, its limits. Senior capitalist spokespeople are talking of the possibility of ‘deglobalisation’, and the need for a ‘rebalancing’ of the global economy. We are in the early stages of a transition to a post-neo-liberal era. What that era will look like is unknown, but there is no guarantee that it will be progressive. (more…)

This is the second part of our discussion of the concept of economic democracy (See part 1). Why is such a discussion necessary? Neo-liberalism is in crisis, yet the left has failed to provide any kind of alternative economic model. Indeed it cannot. The staples of left economic thinking – social democracy and state socialism/Leninism – have both failed, and have failed the working class most of all: theoretically, economically, socially and politically. As a consequence of clinging to these failed ideas, the right has been visibly winning the argument for decades, and will continue to do so until our side ups its game. This is our attempt to contribute to the mapping out of a pro-working class alternative economic model. Discussion and criticism is welcomed. (more…)

Recent weeks have seen racial tensions in the news once more, with the antics of the ‘English Defence League’ and those responding to them featuring high in the headlines. Like the BNP, the EDL claim to be defending the rights of the majority culture in the same manner as minorities, with support from their liberal sympathisers, defend theirs. As times get harder and the economic cake shrinks over the coming years, the battle for the crumbs will, as things stand, be fought along racial lines. This is the legacy of identity politics and multiculturalism. (more…)